There are several hundred operating railroads in North America. But only a tiny handful are publicly traded. Today's opportunities for investing in railroads are extremely limited.

Currently, the industry is divided into two extremes: giant companies and small shortline companies. And the gulf between them continues to grow. At the top end of the scale are the huge companies with tens of thousands of miles of track including the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, KCS, and the CSX.

Together, the top 20 companies control a staggering  213,000 rail miles, broken down roughly like this:

Unlike the old days, there are few publicly traded railroad companies left. The majority of today's railroad companies are closely held by private individuals, investment companies, LLCs, partnerships, and a few government entities. This means that unless you are interested in buying an entire company, you may not be able to buy any shares whatsoever of most of the companies out there.

Here are all of the publicly held companies that I know of, with operations in North America, that trade on North American exchanges. Please tell me if you know of more.